Writing has always been an enormous part of my life from a very young age. My parents have informed me of countless times when I was three where I would sit at the kitchen table and create various kinds of picture books and stories out of construction paper, hole punchers and ribbon. My love for creating stories only grew as became older. Instead of creating “do it yourself” books, I began writing my imaginative stories in a journal or typing them out on my computer. My parents were the only people who read my stories when I was three but as I grew older, my relatives, teachers, classmates, friends and more read them as well. English and Writing were always my favorite subjects in school, I was enrolled in a lot of Honors courses in middle school and in high school. Although writing has always been important to me, I never knew that writing would be important to the point that it would save my life.
This past Spring, the nation was faced with a deadly pandemic, COVID19, that led us to remain in quarantine for several months. With the absence of work, school and our normal, everyday lifestyles, we were faced to discover new activities and skills to occupy ourselves with. For many individuals, writing was a new activity and skill they gained over the course of quarantine. For myself, my love for writing quickly became a coping mechanism. To be frank, being trapped in quarantine truly deteriorated my mental health. I was in a deep state of depression. I felt like I lost everything that was of importance in my life because of the virus; the majority of my senior year, my graduation, my prom, performing, my significant other at the time, certain friendships, my relationship with specific family members and more. Considering all of the things mentioned made me fairly happy, I believed that my life was purposeless without them. It was very difficult waking up on some days and I did not think that I would live to see the next day at times. My sleep schedule was deranged, I was not engaging in my academics, and I was eating poorly. I needed professional help, but it was nearly impossible to obtain help in the time of a pandemic. When everything appeared completely hopeless, an unexpected hero stepped in.
As I mentioned, I was not engaging in my academics over quarantine. I was not completing assignments and was failing courses at one point. I finally gained the courage to reach out to my teachers to explain what was happening in my life, they all generally understood and exempt me from the work. One teacher went the extra mile for the sake of my well-being though. My ultimate favorite teacher, Mr. Stevenson, scheduled a weekly zoom call to check in on me as well as assign me tasks to complete in order to discover activities to occupy me. He was my teacher for Honors 11th grade English and Advanced Placement Language & Composition; and considering my love for writing and literature, we have always had a strong bond. Every week, he would remind me to wake up at a reasonable time, journal about my feelings, sing, read a couple pages in a book, go outside, etc. All of these activities helped me gain stability with my mental health again but writing led me to grow into a stronger person. The task was originally only to journal out my emotions as if I was sharing them with a therapist; however, I decided to artistically transform my emotions into poetry and song lyrics instead, since writing and music were my true passions.
I remember setting an alarm and waking up every morning and turning around in my bed to see 10 o’clock written on my phone’s lock screen. Beforehand, all of the energy that I had remaining was drained from me and I had no motivation for anything; however, planning to write a poem everyday suddenly inspired me and helped relieve my sadness. In the kitchen at my house, there is a sliding door that leads to a deck. I would sit out on the deck very often and feel one with nature. I would also tend to stare blankly out my bedroom window, stare into the sun or gaze at the vase of roses that sat near my window. I would lay out the ruptured, old journal that I had since the beginning of my high school experience on the table (whether it was the table on the deck or the one in my bedroom) before writing out whatever words came to me.
The journal itself did not matter, what mattered was what was on the pages. I vividly remember writing one of my most treasured poems. I happened to be staring out my bedroom window at this particular moment. The roses that sat in the vase near my window were noticeably wilting and dying because I gradually failed to remember to take care of them. I felt just like these roses at that moment. I was once such an energized, radiating, bubbly, hard-working, strong, and artistic individual. Now I was just like these roses; wilted and lifeless. Toxic individuals in my life as well as the unfortunate events with corona snatched the happiness from my soul. I still desired to be myself again even though I felt immense sadness. I wanted to be happy again, I wanted to love again, I wanted to be inspired again and I wanted to be who I was before this pandemic. With those emotions in mind, I wrote out the following words on the first page in my journal:
“She is a wilted rose,
Trying to let her petals bloom.
You try to knock her down,
But in the dirt, she will consume.
All she wants is sunshine,
But you give her rain…and that is okay.
She still will love you anyway.”
I felt every single one of those words deeply in my heart. I felt all of the sadness immediately release from my body. I felt completely free again. I felt like I was in the body of my younger self again, joyfully writing stories and sharing them to the world. I felt like myself again. I was prideful in my creation for several reasons. I believed that I accomplished my goal of normalizing speaking freely about my emotions; writing made it easier to explain how I felt. Although I never shared what I wrote, I felt that if someone actively read my poem, they could analyze it and figure out how exactly I was feeling. I continued writing poetry for some time and I became a happier person more and more that I completed it. I have not currently written a poem since we were in strict quarantine but I might start writing them again in the future. Probably this time to share with the world to spread the word about how relieving writing is.
Writing is my coping mechanism and it can surely be yours as well. With it recently being suicide prevention month, it is imperative that we speak more openly about mental health because it can save someone’s life. Writing helped me become my true self again and helped me become happier. Writing out how you feel can make you feel like your emotions, burdens, your pain and more is being lifted off your chest. Writing can make you feel like your feelings and emotions are being understood. Writing is definitely not for everyone, but it is definitely something to consider. We, the writing community, are helping mental health one writing piece at a time.